Search results

Wow that was quick. Thank you. I agree it does look like the picture on that link. Surprised to find it in the hive. Wonder if it is munching on the eggs?

I thought that too. Initially I thought it was an ant until i saw the wings, it’s about the same size. I was actually having my first go at grafting, so had a little clip on lens on my phone, don’t think I would have spotted it otherwise.

Does anyone know what this insect is hiding in the bottom of the cell? It’s a brood frame of eggs/young larvae, with the bees brushed off.

A first for me today. Collected two swarms in a car park, about 5ft apart. Found what looked to be a be virgin queen in one of them and they were both behaving as if they were queenright, fanning etc. Is it likely to be two casts from the same colony at the same time?

Thanks Dani. Planning to try some demarees myself next year. I hope so too that swarming is abating, still getting plenty of swarm calls, but mostly little cast swarms now, so assume from feral/unmanaged colonies. Flow starting down here too, not really had much of a June gap at all this year.

How do you judge when in the season to dismantle them?

Checked for mated/laying queens in a few hives that were requeening after swarm control 3-4 weeks ago. On the whole a success, with 4 new queens, and one possibly queenless, but will give it another couple of weeks to see. One of the requeening hives did have eggs, but also 3 capped QCs...

Checked two nucs I United a few days ago, first time using air freshener. Unite worked well and chosen queen present and laying. There was one charged queen cell. Not sure if I’d doused them in too much air freshener, or it is swarm preps… took my chances and knocked it down and upgraded the...

Hi all, Thank you for all the advice offered here, knew it would be good stuff. I checked both hives/splits yesterday evening. For 'hive 1' the artificial swarm on the original stand had indeed drawn EQCs on the frames of eggs/brood I had left them with. Going through the parent colony, I...

Hi all, Inspected two hives this afternoon, both with recently capped and some open queen cells. Both hives however were boiling over with bees, and still plenty of eggs and young larvae. I couldn't find either queens, but given the bad weather we've had here the past few days, I made the...

Drone brood removal seems to have questionable at best results in terms of an effective mite control. We should move away from the individual 'caste' way of thinking, and treat the colony as one super organism. Messing with any of the individual 'organs' is going to have a detrimental effect...

Good for you, but you're forgetting the cost of starting out, in the first few years, there's a huge outlay, bigger extractor, more frames/supers/foundation, more hives, better stock etc. Once the size of the operation has stabilised as yours probably have i'm sure there's no doubt you can at...

Ah ok that makes sense. I've been sublimating the past couple of years, so will do as you suggest. No point reinventing the wheel!

Ha - thanks. I was going to make some under floor entrance floors over winter and undecided whether to go solid or mesh.

Does this actually happen though? Surely mites that fall to the hive floor are either dead, or dying. Does the mesh actually do anything, or just an invention of another bit of kit, to sell beekeepers under the guises of 'IPM'?

Another vote for the Abelo Christmas tree, and pine cone here as well. The pine cone is beautiful, but i've sold more of the Christmas trees so far!

Lovely post - thank you! I agree, absolutely nothing wrong with by beekeepers, for beekeepers, as a show case and celebration of the best and what can be achieved. Even if a bit dated/quaint, it's still an excellent public facing opportunity as you suggest. I would love to give it a go next...

Interesting, but again not sure ‘show honey’ is what the public wants? Looking online at most of the major uk honey producers, the advertising is almost all all based around the fact the honey is coarse filtered and retains much of its pollen/wax and hence would be a cloudy and not suitable for...

I suppose there is no one size fits all solution, and i'm not advocating getting rid of honey showing, a bit of a tradition is great and is what makes most agricultural shows what they are. Like a lot of things in beekeeping, would just be nice if there were some options that gave a bit more...